Quote

The defense against childish helplessness is what lends its characteristic features to the adult's reaction to the helplessness which he has to acknowledge - a reaction which is precisely the formation of religion.

Sigmund Freud

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Sigmund Freud
Age: 83 †
Born: 1856
Born: May 6
Died: 1939
Died: September 23
Essayist
Neurologist
Philosopher
Psychiatrist
Psychoanalyst
Psychologist
Freiberg
Sigismund Schlomo Freud
Freud
Characteristics
Adult
Lends
Features
Childish
Reactions
Helplessness
Acknowledge
Formation
Defense
Characteristic
Adults
Reaction
Religion
Precisely

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But one thing about human beings puzzles me the most is their conscious effort to be connected with the object of their affection even if it kills them slowly within.
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Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
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We find a place for what we lose. Although we know that after such a loss the acute stage of mourning will subside, we also know that we shall remain inconsolable and will never find a substitute. No matter what may fill the gap, even if it be filled completely, it nevertheless remains something else.
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There is a powerful force within us, an un-illuminated part of the mind - separate from the conscious mind that is constantly at work molding our thought, feelings, and actions.
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In the last analysis the entire field of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry.
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We know less about the sexual life of little girls than of boys. But we need not feel ashamed of this distinction after all, the sexual life of adult women is a 'dark continent' for psychology.
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No neurotic harbors thoughts of suicide which are not murderous impulses against others redirected upon himself.
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In so doing, the idea forces itself upon him that religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis, and he is optimistic enough to suppose that mankind will surmount this neurotic phase, just as so many children grow out of their similar neurosis.
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We have long observed that every neurosis has the result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from actuality.
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Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind, because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science.
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How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved.
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The facts which have caused us to believe in the dominance of the pleasure principle in mental life also find expression in the hypothesis that the mental apparatus endeavours to keep the quantity of excitation present in it as low as possible or at least to keep it constant.
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It might be said of psychoanalysis that if you give it your little finger it will soon have your whole hand.
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Only a rebuke that 'has something in it' will sting, will have the power to stir our feelings, not the other sort, as we know.
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The psychic development of the individual is a short repetition of the course of development of the race.
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Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead.
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...perhaps the hopes I have confessed to are of an illusory nature, too. But I hold fast to one distinction. Apart from the fact that no penalty is imposed for not sharing them, my illusions are not, like religious ones, incapable of correction.
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I no longer count as one of my merits that I always tell the truth as much as possible it has become my metier.
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Men have gained control over the forces of nature to such an extent that with their help they would have no difficulty exterminating one another to the last man. They know this, and hence comes a large part of their current unrest, their unhappiness and their mood of anxiety.
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